For quitters

http://joelrunyon.com/two3/7-habits-of-highly-effective-quitters

Some things I need to quit.

Joel writes about doing impossible things.  This piece on how to be a quitter amused me.  It effectively tells how to quit something.  My favorite is number one, don't start in the first place.   Well that is all well and dandy if you haven't started yet.  Quitting a bad habit needs a kind of devotion suggested in the article.  One of KavinCoach's complaints about me is I had a 'do or die' attitude.  He had a hard time persuading me to stop doing some things.  Like stop blaming myself for my childhood.  I was a kid.  A little kid.  I needed to learn my real story.  I was a little kid in an insane environment.  I needed to tell my story over and over until I believed that I was just a little kid in an insane world.  I adapted.  Now, I get to quit blaming myself for my past.  I need to spend hours reading positive things and learning about what living is all about.  I came to a crossroad - continue to blame myself or learn to thrive.  I sat at the crossroad for a long time.  I didn't move toward thriving.  I hung back.  I had to quit blaming myself before I could move forward.  It took awhile.  There are two different stories that I learned about setting something free.

Training an elephant begins when they are very young.  The young elephant is chained to a heavy stake.  No matter how hard or how long the little elephant pulls, it cannot get free.  In time, the elephant stops pulling and accepts the limitation.  When the elephant is grown, they can tie a rope around the elephants leg and it will stay in one place without even using a stake.

A long time ago I received an email about a dog they found chained to an old stove.  The dog had been beaten and starved.  When they freed the dog to let him go, the dog cower in fear away from the rescuers.  The open door caused the dog to hide behind the stove in the safety of his abusive world.  It makes no sense to most people as to why the dog would do this.  However, to an abuse victim, it makes total sense.  They stay close to what they know.  They proved this same thing with the Stockholm affect where the victims identify themselves with their abusers.  The first step of gaining freedom is to quit being a victim.  A survivor is a step up.  The next step is thriving.  Quit - I needed to let go and quit blaming myself.  Quit expecting myself to make up for the wrong doing of others.  Quit apologizing for breathing and taking up space.  Quit hanging on to my past and reclaim my future.  I encourage each person to start where they are right now.  Choosing one thing requires letting go of something else.  Much like the muscles that move your arm, one set of muscles contract while another set relaxes, if they both tighten at the same time your arm won't bend.  Learn to quit what you don't want to have in your life and learn to embrace what you do want in your life. 

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